


Day 23: He Could Do Really Weird Things With His Tongue

by thebright1



Series: An Ineffable Plan: A Canon Compliant Love Story [23]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Bullshit Artist Crowley, Gabriel is an asshole, Ineffable Valentines 2020 (Good Omens), M/M, Possessive Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22873252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebright1/pseuds/thebright1
Summary: The sheer terror that Crowley feels coming from Aziraphale can only mean one thing: surprise inspection. He’s heard about these from Aziraphale, but he’s never had the misfortune to be here at Aziraphale’s bookshop when one actually happens. He could miracle himself back to his own flat, but there’s no way he’s leaving Aziraphale alone and helpless, in case they are found out. Crowley is not sure what he would do, but he is an excellent liar and a grade A bullshit artist, if he does say so himself. Whatever hole Aziraphale manages to dig them into, Crowley is absolutely sure his bullshit can pile up and get them out of it. But ultimately, it’s probably just easier if he hides.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: An Ineffable Plan: A Canon Compliant Love Story [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620406
Comments: 9
Kudos: 207





	Day 23: He Could Do Really Weird Things With His Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> All the works in this series are also posted as a chaptered work for easier reading/downloading: [ An Ineffable Plan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23081191/chapters/55213303)
> 
> Originally written as a series of stand alone works for the Ineffable Valentines 2020 Challenge on Tumblr.

January 1, 2003

_Wake up! Get out get out hide hide hide hurry hurry! Please hide, please hurry!_

Aziraphale’s call through their link jolts Crowley awake. He has a brief moment of disorientation before recognizing that he is in Aziraphale’s bedroom in the small flat above the bookshop. He remembers lying down here in the bed covered in books sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Aziraphale had decided to take inventory of the books upstairs as part of some bizarrely human notion to be better about bookkeeping in the new year. Crowley had pushed a pile of books to the side to make some space for himself, and drifted off to sleep listening to Aziraphale drunkenly humming Bach.

_Wake up and get out now! Hurry!_

Crowley looks blearily around the room. He forgot to sober up and _fuuuuuck_ but that was stupid. Now that he’s awake he can feel just how awful all of him feels for sleeping in a fetal position with three hundred pounds of hardbacks as his bedmate. He lifts his head and a pile of books that were wedged against the top of his head slide down and lodge themselves under his neck. He can hear voices from somewhere nearby. 

“Something smells funny,” a deep voice says. 

“Oh?” Aziraphale’s nervous reply comes. “I’m not up here very often, I’m afraid.”

_Hide! You must hide! Please! He’ll destroy us both._

The sheer terror that Crowley feels coming from Aziraphale can only mean one thing: surprise inspection. He’s heard about these from Aziraphale, but he’s never had the misfortune to be here at Aziraphale’s bookshop when one actually happens. He could miracle himself back to his own flat, but there’s no way he’s leaving Aziraphale alone and helpless, in case they _are_ found out. Crowley is not sure what he would do, but he is an excellent liar and a grade A bullshit artist, if he does say so himself. Whatever hole Aziraphale manages to dig them into, Crowley is absolutely sure his bullshit can pile up and get them out of it. But ultimately, it’s probably just easier if he hides.

Mindful of the books, he begins to slowly shift into his snake form. 

The voices are getting louder now. Coming up the stairs? Must be. 

The stranger’s voice again, closer. “Why do you have an upstairs anyway if no one is ever up here?”

“It’s my flat. For the tax people. Need to keep up appearances to fool the humans,” Aziraphale laughs nervously. “Never know when someone from the HMRC will pop round.” 

_You never listen to me, you daft angel,_ Crowley thinks. _I told you no one from HMRC comes round to check up on your flat._ Once they are out of this situation, he is going to give Aziraphale a raft of shit for that sentence. 

“Ah, yes, they’re one of our best groups!” the voice says. 

_Liar,_ Crowley thinks. A government agency obsessed with minutiae and almost universally hated, even by those who benefit from it? Only humans could be so clever. This does not mean that Crowley hasn’t also taken credit for them in Hell, but he’s a demon- lying is in his nature. For angels, it’s bad form. 

Now fully transformed, Crowley begins to shrink his body until he is no bigger than an adder. He slithers between the stacks of books, off the bed and underneath. More footsteps. Aziraphale and the angel inspector are standing in the bedroom doorway now. Crowley coils himself behind a pile of loose books and papers that have been shoved under the bed. He rests his head on the top of a battered paperback, but from his vantage point all he can see is feet. 

“Yes, I was just up here earlier today, Gabriel,” Aziraphale says. “Doing a bit of inventory.” 

_Gabriel._ Crowley can’t help himself- he hisses. 

“What was that noise?”

_Bollocks._ Crowley ducks his head behind the paperback. 

“These old buildings make some strange noises sometimes,” Aziraphale says, neither confirming or denying the presence of a noise. _Good job, angel_ , Crowley thinks. 

“It almost sounded like an animal.” Crowley coils himself tightly, trying to make himself as small as possible. 

“Surely not an _animal_ , although, I really don’t spend enough time up here, it’s just storage.” 

There’s a very long pause. Crowley wonders what is possibly going on. He lifts his head up so he can see over the paperback again. In the doorway of the room, he can see Aziraphale’s scuffed beige shoes and the bottom of his trousers. Next to him shiny patent leather shoes peek out from under light gray trousers. The shoes are so shiny and reflective Crowley thinks the owner can probably use them to shave. 

“I thought you said you were up here earlier today,” Gabriel says slowly.

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale says. He sounds nervous. Crowley has tried to use their bond to send messages to Aziraphale in the past, but he’s never gotten it to work. Even so, he wills Aziraphale to be more confident. It’s the key to winning every conversation. “I mean I’m usually not up here. That’s what I mean. Usually, I am _not_ here, but earlier today, I _was_.” 

Gabriel’s footsteps are heavy as they walk into the room. Crowley can imagine what he sees, because it’s exactly the same as what he saw last night: a small bedroom stuffed with late 1960s hotel furniture. And stuffed on top of every available piece of late 1960s hotel furniture are books. Stacks and stacks of books. Boxes of books. It’s a miniature downtown London of books; packed skyscrapers of books with tiny roads for corporeal feet to travel down to see more books. The area around the bed has been nearly walled in, except for the space Crowley cleared for himself this morning when he crawled in, drunk, to have a lie down. 

“You have an awful lot of books, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says. 

“Well, this _is_ a bookshop.” Aziraphale chuckles. Gabriel does not. 

“How do people buy books if they’re up here?” 

“Oh, they, uhm, they don’t. I mean, they’re not allowed up here, since it’s supposed to be my personal space, but I’m using it to store books.”

“And you’re storing them because you’re going to sell them?” 

“I have to finish my inventory project before any could be sold.” Aziraphale is using shorter sentences at this point. Crowley can imagine the look of mild annoyance on his face. Annoyance is good. Annoyance is better than nervousness. An annoyed Aziraphale is an emboldened Aziraphale. 

“So you put all this stuff here and you don’t even know what’s here?” 

“Well, I know some of what’s here, but I need to do inventory-- you know, write it all down, get my head straight about it.” 

“Yes,” Gabriel says. The way he says it indicates that he has no idea what Aziraphale is talking about and he thinks this fact is purely Aziraphale’s fault for being an idiot. 

_He may be an idiot, but he is my idiot_ , Crowley thinks possessively, then wonders where in Hell that thought came from. Involuntarily, he hisses again. 

“There’s that noise again,” Gabriel says. 

“Hmm,” Aziraphale says noncommittally. 

Crowley sticks his tongue out and ties it neatly in a knot. He would perform a demonic miracle and banish the thing entirely if he wasn’t concerned that Gabriel might comment more on the smell of evil in the air. Furious at himself, he begins to slink around the books, moving cautiously farther under the recesses of the bed. 

“Did you hear it?” Gabriel asks. 

“I did . . . as I said, these old buildings do make strange noises. Do you know, in some flats the heating makes a clanging noise? Some humans used to think it was caused by ghosts. Very silly.” Aziraphale chuckles again. 

_Good topic change,_ Crowley thinks. He slides up against a hard sided suitcase under the bed. The zipper is open. 

Gabriel laughs, too. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. These humans are so stupid. How do you put up with them?”

“Oh, well, you know, I have been stationed here on Earth for my entire life. And the Almighty did send me here, so in a way, I think I was made to love them, even with their faults.” 

_No, no,_ Crowley thinks. _Don’t talk too much._ Crowley peeps his head around the edge of the bag. He watches Gabriel’s shoes move farther into the room, and come to rest right by the bed. Crowley holds perfectly still. He feels the bed above him shift as the archangel picks up a book. 

Aziraphale almost shouts, “No, don’t!” 

Whatever Gabriel has done has dislodged a whole slew of books which fall like rain around the bed. Crowley dives into the recesses of the suitcase, just in case the whole bed collapses. The London of books is beginning to collapse, pile after pile sliding in a hailstorm of paper that ceases abruptly as Aziraphale snaps his fingers. Crowley can hear the sound of shuffling as books right themselves. 

“You should really be more careful,” Aziraphale chides. Crowley winces. _Too confident, too confident . . ._

There’s a heavy sound-- almost an absence of sound-- and a strange presence in the air. Crowley sticks his tongue, still tied, out. He can taste a charge of electricity, not dissimilar to the air before a summer thunderstorm. 

“Did you just use a miracle on those books?” Gabriel asks. His voice is strangely quiet, and deadly serious. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale sounds a bit panicked now. “Oh, I did! I just -- I’ll forget my own head next, it just happened, force of habit.” 

_Stop talking!_ Crowley thinks. 

“So you do this all the time?”

“Well, no, I mean, yes-”

“How can you mean no and yes at the same time?” 

“Oh, uhm, well, I mean no, I don’t do it all the time. I am usually just really very careful around the books so I don’t have to, just in special circumstances.” 

_Stop talking now!_ Crowley thinks urgently, frantically. _Stop talking NOW!_

“I see,” Gabriel says, in a voice that, in no uncertain terms says, “I don’t see.”

Aziraphale, thank Satan, is _finally_ being quiet. 

“Well, now I know at least one of the reasons you’re always above your quota on miracles.”

Aziraphale remains quiet. 

“Anything to say for yourself about that, Aziraphale?” Gabriel asks expectantly. 

“No,” Aziraphale says, in a reserved voice.

“Repentance can be found in silence, but is best done with a glorious rejoicing!” Gabriel says, his whole demeanor changing. He reminds Crowley of a used car salesman. “Do you like that one? Guess who thought of it-- you’ll never guess, go on and guess, you’ll never get it.”

“I, er, I don’t know, uhm, Michael?”

“Michael!” he cries, delight evident in his voice. “Hah! I knew you would never guess, it was Uriel!”

“Oh.”

“Uriel comes up with the greatest lines! He’s just the best!” 

“Indeed,” Aziraphale says. Crowley can hear him doing his best to put some kind of positive emotion into the word. 

“Yes, Uriel has some real good ones…”

Gabriel is prattling on and on about Uriel and his great lines, like he’s the archangel equivalent of Shakespeare. Crowley longs to be free of the suitcase, but doesn’t dare move. The whole thing smells like dessicated suntan lotion and new plastic. There’s a bunch of plastic and metal curved things in here digging into his sides, and . . . oh. _Oh_ . Crowley knows _exactly_ what this bag is for. What’s inside it. And he absolutely positively cannot believe that bloody stupid angel has left it here for thirty years . . 

“Now!” Gabriel claps his hands. “This was immensely helpful and I think I know exactly how I can make the new miracle forms even more specific so that we can finally stop this power drain we have going on and put all our miraculous power back where it belongs!” 

Crowley has missed something and wonders what in the seven levels of Hell Gabriel is talking about. A power drain? He will have to ask Aziraphale about that later. After he takes this bloody camera and the bloody negatives and destroys them.

“That’s good,” Aziraphale says. He is still saying as little as possible. 

“Oh, lighten up, Aziraphale! You’ve done a great job! This inspection has been worth every minute! Most of the time they’re boring and I go back and I don’t know what to do next, but this one has been extremely enlightening. You’ve been so helpful! This is just what we needed to know. I don’t think we’ll need another inspection for another five or maybe ten years at this rate!” 

_Thank Satan,_ Crowley thinks. Aziraphale is miserable company when he’s nervous about the potential for an upcoming surprise inspection. 

“Jolly good,” Aziraphale says, in a way that’s neither jolly nor good. . 

“Didn’t I tell you to lighten up?” Gabriel almost shouts. 

Aziraphale gives a forced chuckle. “Yes, you did, and yes, that’s . . . that’s great news. I’m so happy I was able to be of assistance.” 

“You definitely were!” Gabriel is heading towards the bedroom door. “I look forward to your new reports! I think they will definitely be the best ones ever!” 

Crowley hears Gabriel walk away, the clop of his shiny patent leathers on the stairs. Aziraphale remains still. 

“Oh, Aziraphale?” he calls. 

Aziraphale clears his throat. “Yes?” he asks thickly. 

“Make sure you definitely inventory those books, Aziraphale. And then you should start purging because I think you must have some evil ones in here. This whole place stinks like Hell.” 

_What would you know about it, you goody two-shoes?_ Crowley thinks snidely. _Rule obsessed prick._

“Oh, yes, I’ll be sure to finish up the inventory,” Aziraphale says. “Goodbye.” 

Crowley waits two minutes, three minutes, four minutes . . . finally he hears Aziraphale sigh heavily. He peeks his head out of the suitcase and sees the angel with his face pressed against the carpet, looking under the bed. Crowley tries to say “Good job, angel”, but forgets that he has literally tied his tongue. Aziraphale’s brows furrow in concern. 

“Crowley, what on earth have you done to yourself!?”

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and comments!


End file.
